It’s become increasingly impossible for any movie, whether mainstream or independent, to depict the porn industry with anything approaching accuracy. Show a penis — even a flaccid one — and you’ll be given the NC-17 stamp of death. Show any sexual act and, as the 2006 documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated sufficiently demonstrated, be prepared to get into a lengthy censorship battle with the MPAA. But feel free to maim or kill another human being and you’re likely to garner a PG-13. One of the ongoing hypocrisies about American culture is that violence remains fun for the whole family, while any hint of sexuality is considered Puritanical. Sex isn’t strictly verboten. Just don’t expect to get your film distributed within the present system.
In Finding Bliss, writer-director Julie Davis — who mined similar territory in Amy’s Orgasm — does her best to work her material around this problem, visualizing her adult entertainment production company (Grind Productions) as a locale with screwball possibilities. (It can’t be an accident that a poster of My Man Godfrey hangs in the main character’s apartment.) Leelee Sobieski plays Jody Balaban, a fresh film school grad who did not remind this writer of the actor Bob in any way. She can’t get a job. Even Garry Marshall (playing himself) won’t return her messages. She needs to make her movie, but she isn’t quite willing to pay her dues. Yet despite this steadfast drive, Jody proves quite diffidently vanilla in her sexual attitudes. She gets an editing job at Grind, figuring that she can secretly make her film at night using the surprising resources at her disposal at night while cutting together banging during the day.
The idea that true outsider art can only originate from porn’s “anything goes” exigencies isn’t a bad one for a comedy. Jody’s quest for clandestine respectability is shared, in part, by Grind, who hopes to make a film that can at long last play in mainstream theaters. This is also a production company where actors actually rehearse their lines around a table — an implausible joke that doesn’t quite pay off, but that permits a few meet cute moments. In one of the film’s surprisingly sparse concessions to perversity, Jody finds herself masturbating to the material she’s editing. She falls for disgraced director Jeff Drake (Matthew Davis), who is discovered to have once been a hot art house director and who is now pumping out porn at a steady clip. Drake, however, is remarkably faithful in his relationships. He eschews the casting couch favored by Hollywood and porn alike. When Jody’s initial cast learns of the ruse and flies the coop, Jody is forced to finish her film with porn actors. Jody’s opus is a run-of-the-mill coming-of-age drama that can be found in needless abundance at any third-tier film festival. The film seems to be suggesting that some middle-of-the-road adult entertainment company is now required to flood the marketplace with derivative independent films. (This is interesting when one considers that 1975′s Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS was shot using the Hogan’s Heroes sets. Can one even imagine an underground film being made today using the sets for Modern Family?)
Davis’s film is somewhat entertaining. She’s helped in large part by her cast. Sobieski has been rightly heralded as a serious dramatic actress. It’s a pity, however, that this very talented actress isn’t cast in more comedies. Even when asked to go needlessly over-the-top in a few reaction shots, she manages to sell her character’s pigheaded predicament without coming across as needlessly steely. (Had Katherine Heigl been cast in this film, Finding Bliss surely would have been a disaster.) We very much believe in Jody’s hangups, even if we don’t quite believe in the material. Matthew Davis is also pretty good, imbuing his character with a cocksure unctuousness. The criminally underemployed Kirsten Johnston, whose snappy quirks haven’t quite been understood by casting directors since 3rd Rock from the Sun, is also on hand as a co-worker. Even Denise Richards, who is best known for bimboing it up ten years ago, daringly announces to Jody (and the audience) near film’s end, “I’m a better actress than you thought.”
So Davis has cast well. She knows how to appropriate the best moments from other romantic comedies, such as the rooftop scene from The Goodbye Girl, for emotional effect. And Finding Bliss is much better in using porn as a refuge for misfits than, say, Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Unfortunately, Davis’s film (much like Jody’s) doesn’t entirely trust itself. Instead of letting the audience read the conflicted emotions on Sobieski’s face, the film prefers to bombard us with imaginary voices for Jody to react to. It’s almost as if Davis doesn’t entirely trust her character, much less Sobieski. There’s one scene that Sobieski plays, sitting in an awkward position with her knee up. And this comes across as desperate blocking that needlessly delimits the film’s potential. The film is also awkward when Jody’s parents enter the equation and when, during conversations between Jody and Jeff, it brings up the tired philosophy of women being aroused by more than just an emotional connection. It’s on firmer ground when trusting in the quite mythical Grind, and pursuing the film’s artificial disparity between mainstream and adult entertainment which reflects the very real discrepancies between how Americans live and what our national culture allows us to reveal about ourselves. This film didn’t need Ron Jeremy or Stormy Daniels — who both show up near the end. Had it called more bullshit on the self-imposed censorship system that prohibits real human emotion and real art from flourishing, it might very well have lived up to screwball subtext.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
What a purRfectly
Clear Mess out
of the Rating system
has been made by
the Powers that be.
As per usual, they’re one toke over the line.
Heartfelt thanks for taking the irrational gatekeepers to task.
BTW, apropos of nothing, Leelee’s from the UPW. A friend of a friend of a friend’s daughter, I heard that she once used the same teabag twice. More boiling water, same T-bag. Now that’s what I call down to earth—down right democratic!
Actually, when it comes to the rating system, the REAL sexism has to do with the censorship of FEMALE genitalia, not male genitalia! I can name over 100 movies that showed a penis and still received an R ratin from the MPAA. But if actual female genitalia is shown (anything more than pubic hair) the MPAA gives it an NC-17 rating!
How come the entire male genitalia can be shown (pubic hair PLUS penis and scrotum) but only pubic hair can be shown of women? (the actual genitalia, such as the clitoris and labia, cannot be shown) Even this film “Finding Bliss” showed a clear shot of va semi-erect penis. Of course there was no VAGINA shown. When was the last time you actually saw a clear shot of FEMALE genitalia (the clitoris, labia, or anus) in a movie? The answer is ….NEVER. But there have been several films that showed penises an received R-ratings, including very graphic close-ups. (such as Bruno, Walk hard, Sex and The City, Finding Bliss, Observe and Report, etc.) How come male genitalia can be clearly shown but not female genitalia? Why can we see a clear shot of a penis but never a vagina? How come Hollywood and the MPAA have vagina-phobia? And why do dumb writers always INCORRECTLY claim that penises are censored by the MPAA, while not pointing out the fact that vaginas have never been shown in R-rated films??!!!
Kelly: If you’re calling me dumb and full of come, that’s your opinion. You’ve misread the review. (Note the qualifier “even a flaccid one” in the sentence that caused your fulminative tizzy.) Please cite an R-rated film that featured an erect penis and perhaps the discussion here can be more penetrating. I’ve been writing about the double genitalia standard for a good seventeen years. (Just search USENET!) We need more graphic sex in movies. Period.
Edward Champion, if you’ve been writing about the genital double-standard for so long, then how come you are so goddamn wrong about it?? The real double-standard is that full male genitalia can be shown in R-rated films, but NOT full female genitalia. THAT is the double-standard. How come every part of the male sexual anatomy can be shown (pubic hair, balls, and penis) but actual female genitalia (the vulva or anus) cannot be shown? The most we see of women is pubic hair, which is just body hair and is NOT genitalia. A woman’s genitalia is her clitoris, labia, or anus. There are no films that have clearly shown this and passed with an R-rating. But there are many films which showed full male genitalia (penis and testicles) that have been passed with R-ratings. THAT is the double-standard!
As for erect penises, the erect penis is the same as showing a spread-open (going “pink) vagina or a penetrated vagina. When the penis is erect, its in a PENETRATABLE state, which is the same as showing a vagina in a penetrated state. They will never show a vagina in a penetrated state, so why should they show the penis in a penetratable state (erection)?
Furthermore, some films HAVE shown images of erect penises and still been passed with an R-rating. In the film Bruno, the actor’s penis is shown in a video becoming erect and pointing towards the camera and “talking”. If the scene had been reversed, and it featured a woman’s spread vagina talking, that would definitely have been rated NC-17. This is the double-standard of the MPAA. The MPAA unfairly and sexistly rates female nudity more harshly as a form of censorship.
This is the best response I have ever read by a woman. More women like you are needed for true equality because there is a clear double standard. Who can argue that penis is not mainstream after jackass 3D. Would they ever show a woman urinating into an airplane engine or wearing a camera that showed a close up of her vagina ( not to say hitting a ball). No way (not that I would want to see it) but even the producer of Harold and Kumar said they had to have the women wear merkens to make sure vagina wasn’t shown to get an R rating in the party scene. This is so wrong.
Kelly: Thanks for returning here, and my apologies for a late reply. (Covered the NYFF and then headed out of town.) I’m hoping to jump in here later with a through reply to your remarks. I don’t think we disagree too much. I’ll just say for the nonce that we should probably distinguish between genital penetration and penetrative state. I’m suggesting that more R-rated presentations of the former will lead semantics involving the latter to be more or less null. But more on all this later. In the meantime, if you haven’t checked out this recent Jezebel/Spangle article on the subject, you might wish to:
http://jezebel.com/5661174/why-is-the-mpaa-so-concerned-about-male-nudity
The nudity (or rather genital) double standard is rather amazing. There has been a virtual flood of films over the past couple of years that show penis. Take Jason Segel in Saving Sara Marshall. You also have Bruno, Borat, Mall Cop, Eastern Promises staring Viggo Mortensen,
Zack and Miri Make A Porno, The Hangover, Sex and The City (First film), or Walk Hard. I could go on, but the fact is penis is now a regular in a good portion of R-Rated fims.
Yet to this day a vagina has NEVER been shown in a main stream R-Rated film. All you ever get is fleeting glimpses of hair. This was understandable in the 60s through 90s, but this day in age most women (and even men) groom themselves. If a typical woman was to be viewed nude her pubic hair would not be totally concealing the vagina, yet you never see a woman groomed in a moden day style in an R-Rated movie.
Frontal nudity means you see genitals. With women they only show hair (and many times fake hair). There is, in essence, NO SUCH THING AS FRONTAL NUDITY for women in cinema.
I can’t believe that every woman who appears nude in a Hollywood film just happens to have 70s bush. This has to be intentional. I even read that they use pubic strips (fake pubic hair) to cover the vagina.
This even extends to prime time shows on Cinemax and Showtime (not the late night stuff).
Whether it was Oz, or Tell me you love me, or Rome, you name the show and at some point during that series run there was an episode where a penis was shown. So, what about vagina? NEVER. Not even once.
Take Spartacus on STARZ. Every other episode shows penis. In fact the men are friggin shaved to maximize the visual. Yet in the one or two instances where a woman was totally nude all you got was hair. In fact it clearly looked as though they placed fake hair on the pubic region as one of the girls looked like she had 3 SOS pads taped to her pelvic bone.
Take the current Jack Ass and switch it around and have nude women (shaved) doing all these stunts. It would either get an NC-17, or the bits would be cut. The fact that it got tagged with the male nudity warning is because genitals are shown. With women it never is.
The bottom line is Penis is now common in mainstrean films, yet to this day a vagina has never been shown.
Actually, most female pubic hair in movies is a stuck on patch of fake hair, not their real pubes.